Authoritarianism is alive and well

I stumbled across a very interesting article on authoritarianism and its shortcomings against democracy.  It wasn't anything that I didn't already know, but the author uses a few good cases to prove his point.  What is most surprising is the countries that consider themselves modern (cough cough, Russia and Turkey) can still commit such egregious violations of the democratic system which they seem committed to upholding.

What is more surprising is that it was actually published in Russia (albeit in a Western newspaper).